Friday, October 18, 2013

The good news seems to be that rather than falling apart this time, the center held -- barely.

The bad news is what the Prez said today:

"You don't like a particular policy or a particular president? Then argue for your position. Go out there and win an election."

He's right. And that means that if we don't want these assholes doing it again, we have to beat them, drive them out of office. And it means working on elections not only where we're comfortable, but on their turf as well. I have friends who are working on North Carolina. I have friends working on Texas. There are a couple of plausible Republican House targets in California (Gary Miller, CA-31; Jeff Denham, CA-10) who should be replaced with someone who'll vote for Nancy Pelosi for Speaker.

If we don't want to go through this crap over and over again, we've got work to do. This kind of work, mostly finding people who've been pushed out of the process and bringing them in, is long and hard, but we have to do it.

What the Tea Party represents, in stark contrast to conservatism, is a radical attack on the very framework of our governing system. It is not right or left within our democratic system. It is a form of secession from it and a de facto abandonment of the notion of one country under one rule of law. It is about sabotage rather than opposition. It is bad enough when one party will seek to sabotage the law of the land – by attempting to rally the public to spurn the new healthcare law, in the hopes of causing it to collapse. But when the dominant faction of one party is bent on sabotaging our democracy, it must not simply be tolerated or appeased the way John Boehner shamefully did. It must be defeated. Anything less is a form of appeasement of forces and ideas that are truly antithetical to the democratic way of life and to constitutional governance.

Yes, in my view, the situation is that grim. If the Republican right’s fanaticism still blinds them to the error of their ways after they nearly destroyed the global economy (and brutally damaged the American one), it becomes clear that only a total collapse of the American government and economy could truly teach them the futility of their deluded aspirations. The rest of us cannot and must not tolerate that. We must draw a line. That line, for those who still believe in the regular order of our democracy, is November 2014.

4 comments:

A few years back and then more last national election,we began donating to candidates in other states after we saw how important it was to the nation that good people win in states like Arkansas or Ohio or Louisiana. When we heard of someone who thought progressively, we sent money and it will matter even more in 2014.

If we don't live there, we can't donate time but we can give money to let them advertise. Of all the candidates we saw as mattering, they won because others like us thought the same way and they had the money to compete in the advertising. If we want anything to happen in Obama's last two years, 2014 is critical and donating money, if our own state is already secure, is maybe all we can do. Research names and donate to those who espouse the principles in which we also believe.

Every time I listen to one of my guys/gals say something intelligent in an interview, I think how glad I am we saw that it's not just about our own state. Those selections from other states influence my life. I have a right to help leaders I think are important to get into power.

The ones who did this to us with their drama queen and terrorist tactics,they can only win if we do nothing. Otherwise they have one more year to play their games. We are not their hostages if we refuse to sit down and let them dominate. We may not be able to cause a Ted Cruz to lose but we can make him impotent by enough progressives that he can just rant to his limbaugh fan base.

In picking out faraway candidates to donate to, I consider the recommendations of Blue America, though I don't always agree.

Rain -- you have a fine pair of Senators from Oregon! There's a different generation coming up in the Senate on the progressive side that shows some real promise of accomplishment -- if we can make accomplishment possible.

We do, Jan and I like our Representatives too other than the one from southern and Eastern Oregon who is our lone Republican and very rightie/tea party thinking but hard to get out even with Ashland in that district. We donate to Pete Defazio as they are trying to get him out and even though he's not in our Oregon district, I really like what he says and does. I hadn't tried Blue America but will check it out. What I've gone by is what I hear them say so someone like Sherrod Brown got money and those of his ilk. What it will take this time though is finding unknown names to run in the states with gerrymandered districts. I don't think it's hopeless even as I read how many Republicans are tea partiers and how that will make it possible for Cruz to get the nomination for President. The funny part though is they might just destroy themselves on the Congressional level as they put up these extreme righties and states pull back as they did last time where they lose seats they could have kept blue but lost to nutcase candidates. Palin will help that happen ;)

Living in a purple state is a challenge. I'm gonna be supporting (READ: working my butt off) for whichever Democrat runs against idiot John Kasich for Governor (Hopefully Ted Strickland) as well as my excellent Senator Sherrod Brown. With what's happened to all our industry in NE Ohio, it stuns me that anyone would vote GOP.

What is this blog for?

This San Francisco purveyor of graffiti has it right. When times are bleak -- when country and planet sink under the barely restrained sway of greed, raw power, and fear -- it's time to restate what matters.

I write here to preserve and kindle hope for a national and global turn toward multi-racial, economically egalitarian, gender non-constricting, woman affirming, and peace choosing democracy that preserves the habitability of earth for all. There's a big order -- but what else is there to do but struggle for this? Not much.

Topics range from the minuscule to the transcendent to the global, from dire to delightful. I am not an optimist, but I refuse to allow myself to wallow within the easy bias that everything is going to always be awful. Good also happens; love lives too.

I've been yammering here about activism, politics, history, racism and other occasional horrors and pleasures since 2005. I intend to continue as long as the opportunity exists. In this time, that means activism and chronicling resistance. Perhaps it always has, one way and another.

About Me

I'm a progressive political activist who runs trails and climbs mountains whenever any are available. I've had the privilege to work for justice in Central America (Nicaragua and El Salvador), in South Africa, in the fields of California with the United Farmworkers Union, and in the cities and schools of my own country. I'm a Christian of the Episcopalian flavor; we think and argue a lot. For work, I've done a bit of it all: run an old fashioned switch-board; remodeled buildings and poured concrete; edited and published periodicals, reports and books; and organized for electoral campaigns. Will work for justice.